Chapter 5
I convinced the children to go into the house with me. Of course it wasn’t that hard. They really wanted to go inside and explore this home by the sea.
We walked up the pristinely manicured walkway to the south entrance and through to the main hall. The only word I could think of to describe the interior was “magnificent.” The children were awestruck by the house, the rooms, and the decor and I couldn’t have been happier. It had required a lot of money and time from my grandson to renovate the mansion.
The children gathered on top of a large, mahogany colored rug in the main hall and I sat in a comfortable black leather chair to their left. The warmth of the fire my grandson had built in the massive fireplace behind us and the glow of the bright faces on the children energized me again just as the story I was telling had done. After a quick drink of water, I was ready to continue, and to my surprise, the children’s parents began to fill in the back of the hall around their kids.
“JT was astonished at Michael’s statement,” I began again. “He didn’t know quite how to respond to it. Everything seemed to be happening rather quickly. He realized that only a day before he was preparing to clean out the horse barn. Today, he was supposed to wrap his brain around a tale of fantasy told by a little blonde-haired boy who popped out of nowhere and a skinny guy that claimed to know his grandfather and all about his childhood. Now this Michael fella wanted to take him to a big ol’ house called Warhead Dale that had supposedly been owned by his grandfather (Ol’ Captain Luke). It was quite overwhelming to JT to say the least. I would be lying, however, if I didn’t say that JT was more than a little curious to find out where this unbelievable tale might take him.
JT and Michael drove the rusty blue car back to the farmhouse so they could sit and talk more about his past for a while; JT also wanted to try to digest the events of the past day and a half. He suspected a good cup of hot chocolate would help him take it all in. JT also thought that Gregory and Louise might shed some light on all of this information as well. He had never really talked extensively about his past with them. Sadly, the answers he sought from them were just the opposite of what he wanted to hear.
‘I wish I could help you, boy,’ Gregory told JT as he and Michael sat around after dinner sipping their hot chocolate. ‘Your mom never told us about your childhood or many of your family members. But she did talk about your dad quite a bit. Funny, you’ve never really asked about him before now though.’ Gregory reclined in his big green chair in the homey den. He sat in his favorite piece of furniture every night and the cushions molded around his large, jolly frame.
‘I guess things have changed a little in the last couple of days.’ JT looked over at Michael briefly and then back at Gregory, who nodded in agreement. ‘I also figured there was nothin’ I could do about my dad being dead anyway so why wonder or even ask about him? But since everything that’s happened, I think I want to find out who I am and where I came from. Deep down I’ve wanted to know about that for a long time, but I really didn’t have a startin’ place. I guess I got one now.’ JT had a sound of uncertainty in his voice as he peered back toward Michael.
‘No, no, son. This is what I was hopin’ for,’ Gregory stated in an assuring tone to JT. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I wish you were satisfied with your life here with us, but I know there’s been somethin’ eatin’ at ya. You been limpin’ around here for years wondering what to do next. Maybe all this stuff that is happenin’ to you is a way of tellin’ ya it’s time to get on with livin’ and find out what’s out there - who you are… where you come from.’ Gregory wiggled in his chair in hopes of becoming a little more comfortable even though it was probably impossible; he looked very relaxed as it was. His initial feeling of alarm when he first met Michael and trying to guess his motives had calmed as well. JT was an adult and could make his own decisions. He just didn’t want someone manipulating him.
‘So, what can you tell me about my dad?’ JT asked with trepidation; he was afraid at what he might hear.
‘Well,’ Gregory started, ‘Your mom came to church one Sunday after she moved here in hopes of finally tryin’ to cope with your daddy’s death after four years. She said you two needed a fresh start in a new town after times got hard where you were. She was really quiet as she sat in the back row - quiet as a mouse. That is, until Louise went over and introduced herself –’
‘That’s right, I sure did,’ Louise interrupted Gregory. She sat beside JT with a cup of coffee and placed marshmallows in his hot chocolate, knowing he loved them. Her eyes were kind and her voice was soft; it comforted JT as she stroked gently on his back.
‘She sat in that back row with her head down flipping pages of her Bible. We’d never seen her there before and I just felt like I needed to talk to her. You were there too, so young and handsome, but very sad.’ Louise sat back into the couch and took a deep breath. ‘It took her a couple of Sundays after that to really start talking, but after she became a little more relaxed, she opened up a little about Jackie - your dad.
She told us over time that he was a very kind man, and very handsome as well. She said you were the spitting image of him. He worked hard, but wasn’t very outspoken. She told us that he never really liked to discuss his family or his past. I guess it’s fitting that you don’t remember anything then - he kept mostly to himself from what I gathered from your mother. Most importantly though, she knew he loved her and she knew he loved you.’ Louise crossed her arms and looked into the distance to collect her thoughts. JT could see her mind was turning round and round thinking of other things to say. ‘I really can’t remember too much more. We were just so blessed to be able to take you in. Your mom, though, for about five months before she died, just didn’t come back to church anymore.’
‘Strange, it was,’ Gregory continued. ‘She just didn’t come back. We were so worried. Louise called and called. We even went over to your apartment on Oak Street. She was very distant and disturbed. She just wouldn’t talk to us anymore. She acted as though she never even knew us. Then shortly after that, we heard the news that she had passed away in the accident with the water truck and we found you lying up in that hospital bed. It was very strange. But - yes, Louise is right. We have been very blessed to have you here.’
JT shook his head. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t remember. Louise told him when he was younger that the doctor said it was post-traumatic stress syndrome. JT really didn’t understand, so Louise just told him that he had his memories scared right out of him after he hit his head.
Michael sat respectfully quiet during the after dinner conversation. He really wanted to put his two cents in, but he was so very tired and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful to the Shorts for letting him eat there and giving him a place to sleep that night. Plus, he really just wanted to get JT alone. Michael still thought he needed to do more to convince JT to go back with him to Warhead Dale.
JT’s mind felt scrambled. His thoughts went back and forth and he still didn’t know what to think. He had way too many questions for the very few answers that he was getting.
JT and Michael sat by Gregory’s roaring fire as the darkness of the night set in and the temperature dropped. As soon as the last logs were burning out, JT grabbed his grandfather’s journal and he and Michael went to bed.
There was plenty of room in the farmhouse. JT had his own room with the single diploma hanging on the wall and flowers on his nightstand, and, though they rarely had any, there were still two large rooms for visitors. JT and Michael got to the top of the creaking hardwood steps and Michael quickly grabbed JT’s arm, startling him.
‘So, can I see it?’
‘See what?’ JT’s eyes widened.
‘The cane?’
‘Oh, yeah. I’ll show you.’ Though JT had grown a little more comfortable with Michael, he was reluctant to just hand over his cane. Especially after the story he was told about how valuable it was. He still couldn’t be 100 percent sure that Michael was
not trying to steal it.
Michael followed JT into his humble room and JT grabbed the black cane from out of his closet. Michael’s eyes grew larger than silver dollars as he raked his eyes across the skull and crossbones handle of the cane.
‘Can I hold it?’ Michael asked with a haunting little laugh.
‘Um, sure,’ JT said placidly and handed it to Michael. He did not want to seem rude. The calming conversation in the den just a few minutes before suddenly shifted, throwing JT onto an emotional rollercoaster, much like Michael had seemed to feel that afternoon under the big oak tree in the middle of the Ol’ 22.
Michael stared at the object and gripped it over and over again. His eyes bulged and JT could have sworn Michael was drooling. He then noticed tears flowing from Michael’s eyes.
JT shuffled back a little from Michael as he tightened his hold on the cane. He could see that Michael had a serious obsession with his grandfather’s gift, and he wondered about just how deep the story of the Vryheid, Bruinduer, and the ivory-crested, ebony cane went. What was his grandfather really doing with this secret, and why was Michael so driven to go back to the old mansion? What was really there? What had his grandfather known? Maybe he did need to investigate this fantastic story himself and start living like Gregory had advised. JT also wondered whether Michael, his eyes wide and wet mouth with a firm grip on the cane, was going to turn into some monstrous beast. He was feeling much the same way he did in the barn - confused and vulnerable.
‘You have to go back with me,’ Michael said like a child begging for candy, his voice panting.
‘What? - I don’t know,’ JT said aversely. His mind was still spinning at what seemed like a million miles a second. He wanted to just relax and think about it. ‘I don’t know - maybe I just need to sleep a little. These last two days have been weird, to say the least.’ He sighed and looked Michael in the face as though he were the cause.
Michael carefully gave the cane back to JT as though he were placing crystal back into its case. ‘I see. I guess you do need to sleep on it. I just wish I knew what that was - sleep. It would be so nice.’
‘What’s wrong with you, Michael?’ JT asked, frustrated with his new friend. He was thankful again that Michael didn’t turn into a monster, but now he wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.
‘Nothin’. You just go and sleep on it. I got to go back to that ol’ house with or without you. I gotta meet Kali tomorrow anyway at my sister’s restaurant. I just hope she got the letter.’ Michael turned from JT and walked to his room with his head hung low.
As he was walking down the hall, JT fired questions at him, with no response. ‘What restaurant? Who’s Kali? I want to know about that Willy boy and what you know about him. I have more questions. Don’t go.’ JT stood and waited for Michael to answer him, swinging the cane back and forth like a pendulum. After a few moments, he heard a bedroom door shut. Michael wasn’t coming back.”
“It was late. The moon hung high in the sky and the stars twinkled in the cold, crisp autumn evening. JT grabbed his grandfather’s journal and sat on his bed. If he couldn’t get answers from Michael or Louise and Gregory, maybe he would get answers from his grandfather.
JT was more nervous than scared at what he might find in the journal. He was just as nervous as when he had asked Gregory about his father. He was finding out about his past and it was an unsettling feeling. He did not know what to expect. He had only heard a very brief story from Michael about his grandfather and how he came across the Vryheid city of Hopian. Apparently though, all of Ol’ Captain Luke’s secrets were between the pages of the leather journal that sat before him.
JT untied the journal, and as he went to open it, a battered picture of a man with flowing white hair, a short beard, and a mustache fell on his pillow. JT picked it up and studied it intensely for a moment or two. The man’s piercing eyes were very deep and dark. Under that small beard, JT could see the jagged lines of a little smirk. His skin looked rough and the medals he wore on his blue uniform covered the entire left side of his chest in every color of the rainbow. The man definitely looked very important. He turned the picture over and in a very faint cursive print it read:
Capt. Luke Xavier Davis, Commissioned; 1939, Retired; 1974
‘So this is ol’ granddad? - He looks like a wild old madman.’ JT chuckled a little under his breath and felt like a kid finding a surprise on Christmas day. He might finally collect some real answers.
He opened the journal and paper fell to his bed. After picking through a sample of the loose pages and then flipping through the still intact book, he quit.
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ JT muttered, irritated.
JT was attempting to read a very old journal indeed. It was so old that most of the cursive handwritten words on the pages were fading away and seemed impossible to read. He could make out a couple of dates, but the entries were just too faint and messy for him to make out. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he muttered.
Undeterred, JT strained his eyes and stared at the fading letters of one of the shorter passages for about ten minutes and finally made it out. He found a pencil and traced over the letters:
June 12, 1959
It was a long time coming, but I met a guide named Jato Bindi. A very nice man. Says he’s from the tribe I’m looking for. Don’t know, could be a trick. Met a lot of tricksters on the way here. I just have to trust him I guess. Also says he’s not the only guide I’ll find, whatever that means.
JT sat up in the bed and really, really wished he could make out the other passages. He strained over other lines but just couldn’t read them. He could make out a few words such as, door, sand, deep, and jungle. He even made out the phrase ‘Twinkle toes.’ There were others, but he just couldn’t make sense of them. He could make out little pictures of maps, but they didn’t mean anything either. He saw pictures of stars and what looked like constellations and other sketches in the journal. There were also a myriad of animals, numbers, and other bizarre shapes that he could not translate.
He ruffled through all of the pages and in the back of the journal another picture fell out. JT started to laugh out loud despite of himself.
The picture was of his grandfather standing with another man of dark complexion. Both men were dressed in what looked like primitive ceremonial garb. They wore elaborate head dresses and long flowing robes, which looked as though they were made from the skins of lions and cheetahs. Their faces were covered in white, blue, and orange paint. His grandfather and the other man were smiling from ear to ear, their teeth gleaming through the dark blue paint. JT flipped the picture over. It read:
Me and Jato – Purification Ceremony – 1972
JT delicately placed the picture back into the journal and looked for more photos but didn’t find any. His head ached from straining to read the words in the journal. He looked at his bedside clock and discovered he had spent a long time flipping through the journal trying to read it. He had been so caught up in the moment, time flew past. The clock read 2:30 a.m., which meant he had been studying the journal for almost three hours straight. Resigned, he got up and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water and an aspirin. As he opened the cupboard on the wall, he heard a strange noise come from Michael’s bedroom, ‘Thump!’ Then there was a wispy silence. A few seconds later he heard a slight rustle and then, ‘Thump!’
JT knocked on the door of the room. There was no answer. He knocked again. After a slight pause, he heard Michael’s muffled voice through the door. It sounded scared and troubled. ‘What do you want?’
JT cracked the door and the light from the hall shone on Michael, who was crouched in one of the corners shaking and sweating. His glasses were off and his face was blue and clammy. He was balled up like a baby and held tightly to his lower legs.
‘Go away,’ he muttered, agitated.
‘What in the world?’ JT said, turning on the light and rushing to Michael’s side. ‘What in the world is wrong with you Mic
hael?’ JT asked insistently.
‘I can’t sleep. Don’t wanna sleep,’ Michael said as he grabbed his arms and rubbed them, balling himself even more tightly in the corner.
‘Why?’ JT asked.
‘Cause of him?’
‘Who?’
‘Billy.’ Michael’s voice shuddered when he said the name.
‘Oh, yeah, you mentioned him under the oak tree. I meant to ask you about him; Him and that strange little Willy boy. Who are they?’
‘They’re the same,’ Michael answered, his voice trembling.
‘What do you mean they’re the same?’ JT asked, even more curious than ever. His headache disappeared as adrenaline shot through his body.
‘Willy, Billy - Billy, Willy - doesn’t matter - they’re the same thing. Won’t let me sleep. Won’t leave me alone. He comes to me. He comes in my dreams. Billy, Willy - Willy, Billy, don’t matter; Wants me back in that house, back through the door, back through the Mahogany Door, but he’s changed. Wants you back too, that’s why I’m here - Got to make him stop. Gotta sleep again.’ Michael stared straight ahead with sweat now flowing down off his forehead like water from a gutter spout after a hard rain. JT could tell he wanted to pass out and sleep. ‘He finally found you; Came to you as a person. Came to you as Willy. You see, he likes you. He likes Kali too. He hates me. He always did. He’s changed. I don’t think he ever liked me, but he ain’t never been like this. He’s nasty now.’
JT didn’t know what to say so he tried to keep the conversation going the best he could. Maybe he could get more answers to some of the questions that crowded his thoughts. ‘So who is this Billy- this Willy or whatever - anyway? I forgot to ask. Just slipped my mind I guess. And why are you so darned determined to go back to that house if it’s like this? All messed up and confused?’
‘I have to go back. It seems no matter how much I try to forget about all of the stuff that happened in that old house, I think the only way it’s gonna disappear - the only way HE will disappear - is if I face it. If I face him.’ Michael tried to pull himself together, but his erratic emotions had taken control of him like some crazy puppet master. He shook even more.
‘Well, tell me about this Billy guy, or thing,’ JT pressed to calm Michael down.
‘Old, very old,’ Michael began. ‘He came with the whole Bruinduer package. Of course your granddad never really emphasized how serious this thing was. The Vryheid wanted to control the world they had created, but they never perfected the process. Humans can never perfect anything.
‘Not only did they have to create the door and key to keep it safe, but they had to create some kind of alarm to get them out of Bruinduer before it was too unstable to stay there (JT remembered Willy telling him about how the world was unstable). It’s all real strange. The Vryheid and Billy had a bunch of rules. Too bad we never paid any attention to them.
The tribe believed in spirit guides. Don’t ask me how it works. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Basically, this guide (in this case, Billy) is the conscience of Bruinduer and of the person who first walks through the Mahogany Door. Billy has changed, though; he’s meaner now than he was. That’s all I can say.’
The story just got weirder and stranger to JT. He didn’t know what to believe and it was very hard to process. Was this even possible?
‘It’s hard to grasp, I know,’ Michael said, shaking his head desperately toward JT and wishing he would remember something, anything. ‘You were good at it. Probably the best out of all of us - you were always so even minded and cool. Could get Bruinduer to do what you wanted.’
Michael looked at JT staring back at him with a blank look on his face. ‘And that’s the catch. If you try to control your own destiny like the Vryheid wanted to do, there was always a catch. Your grandfather used to talk about this stuff for hours.
‘The person that goes through the Mahogany Door first controls Bruinduer on the other side. Somehow the world transforms around you. Don’t ask me how - but the catch - the catch - is that the outcome is not always so certain. Somehow, by being in Bruinduer, Billy knows your feelings; from the happiest most satisfying to the deepest and the darkest feelings that you keep locked away and no one else knows. He guides you to do certain things. Some are good and some not so good. Like I said, I really don’t know how it works. He actually has a title - he’s some sort of spirit being. He also has some long proper name nobody could pronounce - I don’t know - I can’t remember. We just called him Billy when he was big and Willy when he was small. It seemed simple enough.
It’s not like he tells you to do something; it’s all real subtle. Ultimately, you have to make the choice on the path he leads you down. But that’s what’s so strange about this and why I’m so worried about going back. I’m not, and you’re not, in Bruinduer right now. So why is Billy after us out here, and how did he get out here? I really gotta find out. I gotta make this stop, and I’m still hoping you’ll find out with me. I mean, really, Billy’s changed - scary, mean, nasty.’
JT sat on the edge of Michael’s bed and tried to understand what he had just heard. ‘And I knew all about this? Even knew how all of this worked?’ JT was so confused.
‘Yep,’ Michael stated. He got up and lay in the bed and tried to force himself to go to sleep. ‘Every time I shut my eyes, he is there laughing at me, taunting me, wanting me to go back to Warhead Dale - big, dark, scary eyes. I sometimes think Billy is what called Ol’ Captain Luke back to that desert after the revolutionary wars in Africa. I mean, why go back to an old dry desert?’
Michael’s voice became a little faint as he started to fall asleep. ‘I can sleep a little - here and there for minutes at a time. I can usually ignore Billy for a little while, but then he starts yellin’ at me and I wake up again.’
JT was getting serrated answers, not quite whole and jagged. He just wished that these answers would have been of the more normal type; not an out-of-this-world tale about spirit guides, mansions, and renegade Egyptians. He had hoped when he learned about his childhood that it would have included perhaps a dog named Spike, and his mom making cookies for him on Saturday mornings; nothing too exciting and certainly nothing like the tale that was starting to unfold before him.
JT was a little piqued at what Billy was putting Michael through, and now for some reason, the big, nasty guide of Bruinduer was after him. He had to think of something, and he had to think fast.
‘Well, you try to go to sleep and when Billy comes in your dreams tonight, you tell that thing, guide, or whatever spirit to just come bother me for a little while. I got some bones to pick with him.’ JT’s breath became shallow, as he had no idea what to expect at his command with such talk; for some reason, he felt emboldened to confront the guide from Bruinduer. For good measure, JT added, ‘Gregory’s still mad about his granddad’s tree.’ Then he stood straight and marched quickly from Michael’s room.
Michael pulled the covers over his head and smiled as JT walked out into the hallway shutting the door behind him.
As JT flipped off the hall light and made his way to his room, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a glowing red light illuminating his doorway. When he entered his bedroom, the eyes of the skull on his cane beamed an eerie red and then the light faded away. Startled, but undeterred, he climbed between his sheets and blankets and stared at the dark ceiling above him. He took a few deep breaths.
‘Come and get me,’ he whispered and shut his eyes.